PULLMAN — Success is defined as the achievement of something planned or attempted. Improvement is defined as the process of making something better.
If the latter was what the Washington State Cougars were looking for in their punt team this season, the former is what’s happened in the past few weeks.
The WSU punt team is improved. So much so it’s a success, something that couldn’t have been said last year (when WSU finished with a net average of 34.5 yards per punt) or even earlier this season.
All because of a new-look punt coverage team installed by a new coach featuring a new punter.
But trying to figure out which is more important is like trying to unravel the chicken and the egg conundrum.
The Cougars have been using an unusual formation all season — they have four gunners posted wide, a group of four blockers around the ball and two protectors in front of the punter — but the real improvement came midway through the season, when assistant coach Dave Walkosky decided to use what is known as the rugby punt.
A rugby punt requires a punter who can kick on the run, and the Cougars found the right guy in redshirt freshman Reid Forrest, recruited out of Ephrata to play wide receiver.
The past three games not only has Forrest averaged 39.8 yards per punt, but WSU’s opponents — Oregon, UCLA and Cal — have only 7 return yards combined. By any measure that’s a success.
The Cougars 39.7 net average over those three games would be third in conference. As it is, they have moved from 10th early in the year to seventh in conference games.
“We put it in when I got here, and we worked it,” said Walkosky, who was at the University of Toledo last season. “But what I’m real excited about is the players bought into it. The believe in it.”
Which put them in the minority early. The Cougs’ first punt with the new formation was blocked by Wisconsin, though then-punter Darryl Blount did pick up a first down.
But still, the new-fangled look wasn’t a hit until Forrest took over in the USC game, replacing Blunt, who was ultimately suspended from the team after the Arizona game for what head coach Bill Doba termed “conduct detrimental to the team” and has not returned.
The 6-foot, 179-pound Forrest ran for a first down against Arizona and, despite later dropping a snap and having to get off a 14-yard punt under pressure, finished that game with a 32.2 average. From there the Cougar punt team has successfully executed every punt, forcing a turnover at Oregon, holding UCLA to negative return yardage and negating Cal’s All-American DeSean Jackson with Forrest’s rolling, bouncing efforts. Twice they have forced an opponent to waste a time out to deal with a slightly different looking punt formation.
Forrest sees his role as the quarterback of the punt team. Which makes his pedigree — he was Ephrata’s quarterback for three years — important.
“I read guys,” explained Forrest of his role prior to punting the ball. “I actually read guys before the ball is even snapped, and that tells me which angle I’m going to take. And then I read the returner and try to punt it away from him.”
Forrest takes the snap — after the Arizona drop he says his No. 1 priority is to catch the ball first — and sprints right. The whole time he is moving, the gunners are getting downfield in coverage. If the defense comes up, he punts the ball. If they don’t, he must decide to run or punt.
“That’s what makes it so fun,” he said. “It’s actually like an offensive play rather than a punt because I make reads and get to make decisions on the go.”
“Every decision he’s made is exactly 100 percent correct,” Walkosky said, before repeating himself to emphasize whatever Forrest decides to do, Walkosky will support. “There are no wrong decisions. There are rules he has, he knows them and he’s followed them. He is a quarterback back there, there’s no question. It is a new position.”
One that is being copied.
“You look across the country,” Walkosky said, “and Arizona is now rugby kicking.”
Improvement. Success. And now imitation.
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